To discuss the findings from a DBB study concluding that DoD could save $125 billion by instituting operational reforms and reducing “back-office” (non-combat) operations.

To investigate any deliberate suppression of DBB’s findings, as well as DoD’s progress in implementing necessary human resource and administrative cuts.

BACKGROUND:

In October 2014, DoD commissioned DBB to perform a comprehensive study to find human resource and back-office administrative cost savings so that the Department could reallocate the funds to war-time operations and maintenance.

In December 2016, the Washington Post reported that DoD tried to bury the results of this study when it identified far more wasteful spending than the Department expected.

Thirty-one members of the committee sent a letter to DoD seeking information about the study.

KEY VIDEOS:

Chairman Chaffetz (R-UT): “Even just doing a study we can’t figure out what it cost and what it didn’t cost and who got paid and who didn’t do the work. . .whether you’re buying an F-35 or whether you’re buying a study. . .this is the problem in the bureaucracy of the Pentagon”

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Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH): “So all the other times you use taxpayer dollars, you do a study, find out something important for taxpayers and potentially savings, there’s a normal way that information is presented to the public. . .[this report] wasn’t widely disseminated, wasn’t printed, and was taken off the website. Why was this report treated different?. . .Maybe it was the magnitude of the findings?”

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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): “How do we on this side of this dais ensure that never again are there tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in savings that the American people are denied because some unknown person at the Department of Defense puts a kabosh on it–for whatever reason–and Congress doesn’t find out about it?”